Newt Gingrich To Host The Movie `Boys Town'

MARIETTA, Ga. - When Newt Gingrich suggested that the first lady rent the movie "Boys Town" to see an example of how an orphanage should be run, Ted Turner listened.

Turner Network Television will air the movie next week as part of its "Our Favorite Movies" series - with incoming House Speaker Gingrich as host.

A self-described "movie nut," Gingrich, R-Ga., taped his comments yesterday at his office.

Seated before photographs of Spencer Tracy and Mickey Rooney, who starred in the 1938 film about the home for troubled youths, Gingrich said he admired the way values were depicted in the movie.

"It's a film that really illustrates the alternative to the modern welfare state," Gingrich said.

Gingrich this month on NBC's "Meet the Press" urged Hillary Rodham Clinton to rent the movie before she criticized his plan to deny welfare aid to teenage mothers and use the money to provide services to children, including orphanages or group homes. The first lady said promoting orphanages was "unbelievable and absurd."

Gingrich said that if a 1990s version of the film were to be made, he would choose Macaulay Culkin and Harrison Ford to reprise the Rooney and Tracy roles.

He'd like to see a remake, but "my fear is that Oliver Stone would remake it as a film about cannibalism in an orphanage."